DESCRIPTION (adapted from the application) This proposal requests partial support for the sixth FASEB Summer Research Conference entitled "Mechanisms of liver growth and differentiation in health and k disease" which will be held July 11-16, 1998 at the Conference Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado. The primary objective of this conference is to bring together scientists who study basic cell and molecular biology of the liver and scientists who examine the diseased liver: carcinogenesis, fibrosis, hepatitis and the response to injury. Program and session Chairpersons are as follows: Session, Chair 1. Liver Specification and Lineage Differentiation, Ken Zaret 2. Liver Biliary and Stem Cells, Nelson Fausto 3. Maintenance of the Differentiated State In Hepatocytes, Gretchen Darlington 4. Molecular Bases of Liver Regeneration, Rebecca Taub 5. Apoptosis and Liver Injury, Harriet Isom 6. Mechanisms of Hepatic Fibrogenesis, David Brenner 7. Genetic Mechanisms of Hepatocarcinogenesis, Randy Jirtle 8. Viral Pathogenicity in Hepatitis Band C, Frank Chisari 9. New Approaches to Hepatic Gene Therapy and Transplantation, Mark Kay The fields of liver growth and differentiation have evolved recently to the point where scientists are now focusing not only on the hepatocyte, but on interactions between hepatocytes and nonparenchymal liver cells in determining the normal development of the liver, and physiologic and pathophysiologic responses of the liver. The major focus of this meeting is to bring together a group of scientists who will further our understanding of the complex intra an intercellular interactions in the liver. Early sessions focus on the normal liver and include sessions on liver development which involves a mesodermal to endodermal induction process, the normal biology and metabolism of hepatocytes and the biology of other cell types in the liver. With this background, physiologic and pathophysiologic changes in liver during regeneration, injury, fibrogenesis, carcinogenesis, and hepatitis will be discussed at the molecular level. Finally advances in gene therapy which are made possible by the enormou regenerative capacity of the ordinary hepatocyte will be described.